{"id":3379,"date":"2013-08-06T14:11:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T04:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/?p=3379"},"modified":"2013-08-07T10:43:11","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T00:43:11","slug":"we-open-source-it-and-then-developers-show-up-and-do-work-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/06\/we-open-source-it-and-then-developers-show-up-and-do-work-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We open source it, and then developers show up and do work for free&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Those who have been around the free and open source software world long enough have heard &#8220;We open source it, and then developers show up and do work for free&#8221; at least once and have called bullshit on it at least once.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that people don&#8217;t go and work on software for free. They are either modifying software to scratch their own itch (in which case they&#8217;re getting 99+% of the code for nothing, so contributing a small bit back is the equivalent of paying for it &#8211; with their time rather than money) or it&#8217;s a good bit of fun.<\/p>\n<p>So why do software projects that are dual licensed with a commercial license get fewer outside contributions? I think it&#8217;s quite simple: people don&#8217;t tend to spend their spare time making other people money while making none for themselves. Simply, these projects are left with only contributions from those being paid to work on it (usually by the company who sells the commercial license) and people\/companies scratching an itch. Projects that aren&#8217;t dual licensed are more likely to have contributors from several companies as then it&#8217;s not all-but-one company spending time and money to make another company money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those who have been around the free and open source software world long enough have heard &#8220;We open source it, and then developers show up and do work for free&#8221; at least once and have called bullshit on it at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/06\/we-open-source-it-and-then-developers-show-up-and-do-work-for-free\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[76,1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code","category-general","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5a6n8-Sv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2201,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/28\/contributor-agreements-kill-contributions\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":0},"title":"Contributor Agreements kill Contributions","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2012-05-28","format":false,"excerpt":"A good while ago now, there was a bit of activity from others discussing the impact that contributor agreements have on contributions. Most notably, from Simon Phipps and Michael Meeks: \"Contributor Agreements Say Your Contribution Is Unwelcome\" by Simon Phipps Michael Meeks on LibreOffice I've been around this Free and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;code&quot;","block_context":{"text":"code","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/code\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3702,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/14\/ghosts-of-mysql-past-part-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":1},"title":"Ghosts of MySQL past, part 10","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2014-03-14","format":false,"excerpt":"At the end of 2007, the first alpha of MySQL 6.0 was released. Alpha is the key word here, 5.0 was in decent shape by this stage, 5.1 was not ready and there were at least rumors of a MySQL 6.1 tree. I'll go into MySQL 6.0 later, but since\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;mysql&quot;","block_context":{"text":"mysql","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/work-et-al\/mysql\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_20140310_111449","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/IMG_20140310_111449-283x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3191,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/31\/those-who-do-not-know-the-future-are-doomed-to-repeat-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":2},"title":"Those who do not know the future are doomed to repeat it","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2012-12-31","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Open Source Developers Conference (OSDC) in Sydney where I gave the dinner keynote. I had previously given the dinner keynote at OSDC 2010 in Melbourne, where I explored a number of interesting topics \"that I wasn't really qualified to talk about.\" In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3811,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/06\/mariadb-trademarks-and-advice-for-your-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":3},"title":"MariaDB &#038; Trademarks, and advice for your project","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2014-10-06","format":false,"excerpt":"I want to emphasize this for those who have not spent time near trademarks: trademarks are trouble and another one of those things where no matter what, the lawyers always win. If you are starting a company or an open source project, you are going to have to spend a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;drizzle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"drizzle","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/work-et-al\/drizzle-work-et-al\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3699,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/13\/ghosts-of-mysql-past-part-9-best-team-name-ever\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":4},"title":"Ghosts of MySQL Past, Part 9: BEST. Team. Name. EVER.","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2014-03-13","format":false,"excerpt":"(This is part 9 in a series, part 8 is here - because reverse chronological order totally makes sense here) So, back around 2007, somebody noticed that an awful lot of the downloads of MySQL and associated utilities from mysql.com were for Windows. Of course, it's then immediately pointed out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;mysql&quot;","block_context":{"text":"mysql","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/work-et-al\/mysql\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2088,"url":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/28\/howto-screw-up-launching-a-free-software-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":3379,"position":5},"title":"HOWTO screw up launching a free software project","author":"Stewart Smith","date":"2010-07-28","format":false,"excerpt":"Josh Berkus gave a great talk at linux.conf.au 2010 (the CFP for linux.conf.au 2011 is open until August 7th) entitled \"How to destroy your community\" (lwn coverage). It was a simple, patented, 10 step program, finely homed over time to have maximum effect. Each step is simple and we can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;code&quot;","block_context":{"text":"code","link":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/category\/code\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3386,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3379\/revisions\/3386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flamingspork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}